


The Pit and the Crystal Pendulum

by garrideb



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Captivity, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mutant Hate, Nobody Actually Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrideb/pseuds/garrideb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how Emma escapes Trask Industries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pit and the Crystal Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Emma had been a prisoner for twenty-three days. She had started to visualize her freedom as being a place beyond a sheer, diamond-smooth cliff. There were cracks in that wall, gaps she could use as handholds and footholds. She just had to find them and then she would escape.

The skin of her neck itched under the shock collar. Emma sniffed, smoothed down the front of her jumpsuit, and folded her hands in her lap. She would not touch the collar. There were guards watching, and cameras set up to survey both her cell and the hallway. Emma had always been a private person and that wouldn't change no matter how many eyes were on her. No one would know how badly she wanted to rub at her neck. The trick was composure. 

Composure, and a grand escape to plot. She didn't even close her eyes to imagine the cliff she would climb to freedom. If she closed her eyes they'd think she was in denial, blocking reality out, or just fatigued. It didn't matter if any of that was true. She didn't want any of them thinking it.

It infuriated her that this was the only way she could control their thoughts. The damned collar felt like an iron weight around her neck, no matter how minimalist and modern it was in reality. 

Without the collar she could make them believe the facility was on fire. She'd walk out calmly as they ran around terrified, engulfed in the scent of smoke and burning flesh. Or she'd generously share the fantasy that Azazel had dropped in for afternoon tea and was as stab-happy as ever. 

The collar wasn't perfect, though. She couldn't influence other minds -- not without a nasty electric jolt -- but she could still read the occasional thought. 

And thus, the cracks in the cliff-face. 

"Hands against the wall."

Emma blinked and stood up. The guard bringing her meal tray was named Casey, though he had certainly never told her that fact. He was frightened of mutants. Not surprising, considering the propaganda that Trask Industries showed all new employees. But he was less frightened of her. He thought her unnatural stillness was a result of fear and shock. It made Emma want to laugh; trust a man to misread poise and composure. It just went to show that men saw whatever they wanted to see.

She put her hands on the wall but left her body angled towards the door so she could look Casey in the eye. He set the meal tray down and paused. 

"Casey," she said softly. "Why am I here?"

"You're a mutant," he answered, but he seemed uncertain. "You knew my name, remember?"

As if she could forgot. He was the only guard who talked to her, and thus one of only two people who she'd spoken to in the last twenty-three days.

"Oh honey," it was important to sound maternal and mysterious. She had a very specific image to present to Casey. "I'm not a mutant. I'm a clairvoyant. Many people have psychic abilities. We've been here all throughout history."

"Telepathy is a known mutant ability."

"If that's true, how was I able to sense your name while wearing this mutant suppression collar?" She delicately touched the glowing yellow bulb.

It was the gesture that did it. A memory flowed to his forethoughts, strong enough that Emma could see it; he had an aunt who claimed to be psychic. She had thick gray hair that framed her elegant face, and she wore polished quartz around her neck, which she touched in much the same manner as she predicted the future. 

Emma had seen Casey's aunt in his memories before. The connection between Emma and this neighborhood charlatan was thin at first -- they both had arching eyebrows, defined cheekbones, and the ability to guess tidbits about a person's life -- but Emma had been nurturing it. Now he saw his aunt in the tilt of Emma's head and the way she said his name. 

She could _be_ his aunt in a matter of seconds without the infernal collar, but even with the collar she wasn't helpless. She could approximate. It was slow work, maddeningly slow, but it was something. 

"The collars don't suppress everything," Casey was saying. "Just aggressive use of mutations."

"I'm not a mutant," Emma insisted gently. She shook her head. If she were wearing those long, dangling earrings that his aunt favored, they would have jingled and chimed. "In fact," she did that head-tilt now, and squinted her eyes. "you've known someone else with the second-sight."

He nodded, jarred by the resemblance. "My Aunt Florence." 

"Imagine locking her up," Emma mused. "And for what? The crime of intuition?" She turned around and sat on her bed. He didn't even flinch, though it was against all rules to move before the guard was out the door. But he'd never been scared of his gentle, eccentric aunt, so why should he be afraid of this woman? _Good_ , Emma thought as she placed her tray on her knees and stared balefully at the pathetic meal they'd served her. _Good_. 

"They'll be doing more tests with you tomorrow," Casey finally replied. "If you aren't a mutant, they'll figure it out."

"And let me go?" Emma laughed. "I never thought I'd live to see a modern-day Salem." 

Casey twitched, and Emma ducked to hide her smile. It had been a shot in the dark, but someone like Aunt Florence was bound to have talked endlessly about witch trials. 

"No one's going to burn you," Casey muttered as he turned and left the cell. The sound of the lock was quieter than usual, as if he were trying to avoid its usual loud clang. Emma never reacted to the noise either way, but she appreciated his quietness for what it was -- a sign of remorse. 

Digging her spoon into the disgusting excuse for mashed potatoes, she evaluated her victories. She'd moved toward him without causing alarm. She'd read his thoughts; not just of his charlatan aunt but also of mutants that weren't fully suppressed by the collars. She'd seen Angel in his memories, wings spread while wearing the collar but unable to spit acid. And perhaps most importantly, she'd been informed of her schedule for tomorrow. She'd be on the chopping block again. Always good to have advanced warning for that.

* * *

The worst thing about Trask was that he didn't think mutants were monsters. When he looked at Emma, he didn't see just a weapon or a terrorist or a freak of nature. He believed that she felt emotions just like a baseline human.

He looked at Emma and saw a woman. He knew he was experimenting on people very minimally different from himself. He simply didn't care. 

He truly believed that drawing a line between humans and mutants would bring world peace, or, at the very least, continued government funding. That was all the motivation he needed to keep him free from pesky things like a guilty conscience. 

There was no ground to be gained with Bolivar Trask. That meant Emma was obsessively determined to not lose an inch of her own ground during their little meetings. 

"Ms. Frost," Trask tapped the manilla folder he was holding with one hand. His nails were very well-manicured, unlike her own at the moment. She wasn't jealous. She _was_ venomously hateful. "We have records from the CIA. We have written descriptions and even photographs of your other mutation. I know you can transform your body into a…" he flipped open the folder and considered the documents inside for a moment. "…a crystalline substance. That sounds fascinating, Ms. Frost. All I'm asking for is a demonstration."

Emma raised an eyebrow. It was the closest she could manage to a shrug while restrained to a table. 

"Why so reticent, Ms. Frost? You were never shy with the CIA. It says here you cut through inch-thick glass with the tip of your finger."

"And now look at my hands," Emma sighed. Trask's attention snapped to her cuffed hands eagerly. "My nails are a mess," she finished.

Trask frowned. "I could remove them for you."

Emma hummed contemplatively. "A paraffin soak should suffice."

"Ms. Frost…"

"Mr. Trask," she simpered back at him, "if you want to _chat_ as if we're at the salon, take me to a salon. It's that simple."

"I am trying to make this easier on you," he snapped, and Emma raised her eyebrow again, just to drive home the point that he had lost composure first. Oh, he knew she was keeping score. He pursed his lips and straightened his tie, agitated. Emma smiled. He could hold her captive and cut into her without a twinge of emotion, but as soon as she made it about _pride_ … well, men's egos were more easily bruised than their consciences. 

That had been Shaw's downfall. He had refused to kill Erik not out of any sense of brotherhood but because his ego couldn't handle the thought of Erik dying as a free agent. 

"Perhaps you've got the right idea with the paraffin soak." Trask tapped the folder again. "We've tried to trigger your mutation through physical pain, but so far needles and scalpels have been ineffective. But perhaps that's too localized, or perhaps you've trained yourself out of an automatic response against a stimuli that could, after all, be life-saving. It would, for example, be difficult to perform surgery through crystalline skin."

Emma considered this, playing along. "You'd be able to see all my organs without cutting me open," she offered helpfully.

He ignored her. "Heat might be a better trigger. Surely you'd protect yourself against boiling water."

When I kill you, Emma thought, my lack of remorse won't be psychopathic. It will be completely understandable.

* * *

Later, back in her cell, Emma considered the throbbing red skin from her hand up to her elbow. It was the only part of her that looked as angry as she felt. She flexed her hand gingerly and bit back a hiss. At least it was her non-dominant hand.

They'd removed her collar for the expiriment, and although the pain had kept her from tricking her way out, she'd caught some clear thoughts. While pinning down Emma's wrist, one of the scientists had recalled Angel's exquisite wings. The other mutant wasn't in this facility, but she wasn't far. A couple hours drive, perhaps.

Emma hadn't planned on being captured by Trask, but this kind of intel made it almost worthwhile. The scientist had been remembering the tissue sample he'd taken from the wings. 

"What happened?" Casey stood outside her door, peering in with something bordering on concern. He wasn't on her side yet, but he was close, and Emma needed all the handholds and footholds she could reach. 

She flexed her hand again and let tears well in her eyes. "They burned me."

* * *

When she wasn't planning her escape, Emma found herself thinking about her recent past. If she looked at it hard enough, held it up to the light and examined each facet, she'd find the flaws and know where to cut next time. 

It was shameful, really, being a captive twice in less than a decade. It was still better than being a vapid socialite, true, but Emma could do better.

The CIA situation had been different. She'd been younger then. She'd thought she could hide in Shaw's shadow while keeping her own agenda, but she'd been too eager for protection and too susceptible to flattery. She'd thought she'd been Shaw's right-hand woman when in reality she'd been a pawn. 

She could have probably broken out of the laughably flimsy CIA cell on her own, but she'd trusted Shaw to come for her. How many weeks had she wasted, gathering dust? And then it had been Erik, not Shaw, who had arrived, in a cape and helmet like a little boy playing knights of the round table. She still wasn't sure if she should laugh or feel pity for how quickly Erik had fallen. 

She'd told him that recruiting the president was too risky. But he was all about the grand gestures. Hell, he probably got a sick sense of satisfaction from knowing the military had to keep him buried beneath the pentagon. It suited his flair for the dramatic.

Trask Industries, on the other hand, didn't need to resort to cement bunkers for Emma. They'd read about the time she'd cut through the wall of her CIA cell just so she could taunt her guards, and as a result, presumably, they'd programmed her collar to zap her if she got too close to the bars. 

Trask Industries called them mutant suppression collars, but they really were just glorified shock collars. Emma had pointed this out to Trask early on. She'd felt it important to share her opinion that his engineering department was unoriginal and uninspired. That his inventions were derivative. He'd felt it important to demonstrate that they were, at least, effective. Emma couldn't cast illusions through the distraction of a couple joules, even when the charge wasn't particularly strong or painful.

He'd wanted to verify that the shocks could also keep her from changing into her diamond form. Emma had tested this out on her first night in the cell, but she'd done it discreetly. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a proven theory. She wasn't even going to admit she could transform. 

Hell, she wouldn't admit to being a mutant. Erik would probably have a conniption at that, but Emma wasn't going to give Trask Industries anything. Anything but smoke and mirrors.

* * *

Aunt Florence used to get headaches. She told people it was a hazard of possessing the second sight, and to young Casey it seemed she wore them like a badge of honor. But sometimes she laid on the couch, her arm flung across her eyes to block out even the gentlest lick of light, and wouldn't move for hours. When she spoke it was a hoarse request for her pills and a glass of water. 

He was too short to reach her medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink, so he had to pull a chair into the tiny bathroom. There were dried flowers hanging against the mirrored cabinet. If he opened the cabinet door too fast, bits of petals and leaves would crumble into the sink, so he was always careful. 

Emma saw all this even before she heard Casey's approaching footsteps. When he set down the meal tray, there were two small white pills half-tucked out of sight under the rim of the plate. 

Aunt Florence would have squeezed Casey's hand to thank him. Emma couldn't because of the cameras. Instead she sent him a pulse of warmth and the scent of drying lavender. It was sweeter and subtler than most of her illusions, and for a few seconds it seemed she'd gotten away with it. Then the sting of electricity shattered her flow of thought. She winced.

Casey didn't notice. He was too busy closing the cell door with the upmost quietness and care. Were there dried flowers hanging, not a petal would have broken.

* * *

He brought the pills again before her next session with Trask. They made her feel loose and scattered, but she didn't want to risk leaving them in her cell or hiding them on her body. She'd made progress, and if she lost her footholds now she'd fall all the way back down to the bottom. 

Besides, it didn't matter how she felt. It was all about composure. 

Emma watched as the scientist on her left tightened a restraint around her wrist. It was the same man who had remembered taking a scalpel to Angel's wing. His thoughts seemed louder today, and Emma glared at him. He had an upbeat pop song swimming through his thoughts like a glittering fish. He was nodding his head to the beat -- only slightly, but the light reflecting on his glasses bounced with the movement. He was happy. 

Emma grabbed the song and shook it.

The man frowned and rubbed at his ear, which was now ringing softly.

Distantly, Emma was aware that the collar had jolted her, but her grasp of Bespectacled's mind only flickered. She didn't lose control. She pulled the song apart, destroying all but the first notes, which she then flung back into his head. He hummed them, paused, hummed them again, then opened his mouth as if to physically stop the looping melody. 

The other scientist in the room looked up, annoyed. The security guard in the corner ignored them.

Emma blinked slowly. The shocks were getting stronger. She pulled out reluctantly.

But his mind was open. She could _use_ this. She could see the locations of Trask Industries' other captured mutants. Angel was still alive. So was Azazel. But they didn't have much time. Emma's stomach dropped with the realization that she had to act now. No more reconnaissance or holding pattern or tentative planning. No more footholds -- she had to jump. 

She could only manage one mind at a time. The guard then. He could give orders. 

It was just as well that Trask had taken a personal interest in her mutation. He had been one of only two people to speak to her in the past several weeks, and Emma had memorized his mannerisms. She took a deep breath and cast the image of Trask entering the room into the guard's mind. She managed three seconds before a shock caused the image to slip in and out. 

Her mind whirled. Three second interruptions -- she had to incorporate it somehow, make it believable, sell it…

She counted down to the next shock and made the guard believe the lights had cut out for a brief moment. If he was disoriented enough, if his eyes were adjusting, he wouldn't notice Trask's suspicious lack of permanence. And then she timed it again, and again. Trask was there, the lights went out, Trask wasn't there but then he was again. It had a strobe-like effect that was making Bespectacled dizzy. Emma too, but that might have been the pain killers. 

"What's happening?" the guard asked.

"Security breach," Trask answered. Emma made his expression urgent yet composed. He _would_ handle a real security breach with dignity, she was sure. 

"What do you mean?" Bespectacled asked the guard, confused. Luckily the guard mistook the question as directed at Trask.

"We need to lock down," Trask replied. "Bring Ms. Frost." 

The guard nodded at Bespectacled. "Untie her. Hurry up."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Stop asking questions and follow protocol," the guard snapped. Emma's wrists were freed.

Emma couldn't keep the illusion going. In the sudden clarity, the guard froze. "Mr. Trask?" he asked, peering in the direction he'd last seen his employer. Both scientists parroted the action. 

Emma took her chance and lunged. She'd been unable to hold her diamond transformation before, but she'd been trying to be discreet then, and had lacked both the painkiller's numbing effects and also the adrenaline running through her body. This time she had to succeed. She started with the top of her head and suddenly realized that the strands of her hair that had snuck under the collar were the perfect resource. 

She twisted her head sharply, and the diamond-hair cut across the electrodes in the collar. With a few sputtering sparks it died. By the time the guard and scientists had turned back to her, she was fully transformed, dizzy and shaky but carried on by momentum. She slammed into the guard, knocking them both to the ground. As soon as she had a grip on the gun she scurried back and stood up.

She was barely able to stand. All the same, she threw back her shoulders and glared at them disdainfully. "If you follow me I'll make sure there's not enough for Trask to bury," she hissed, and stalked out as best she could when the floor seemed to undulate under her feet. For good measure she slammed them all with the psychic equivalent of an upper-cut, though she didn't stick around to see if the blows landed.

* * *

She was human-looking again when she found Casey. Out of everyone at the facility, she was most familiar with his mind, so he hadn't been hard to track. 

He stared. She supposed she had burns and blood on her neck, and there _was_ a gun in her hand, but it was hanging loosely by her side, pointed only at the floor. "You need to get me outside," she told him, since he seemed disinclined to speak. "I'm forcing you," she added helpfully, nodding vaguely at the gun.

"I'll help you if you give me the gun," Casey replied, once he'd shaken himself out of his stupor. "Hey, you're psychic. You know I want to help you."

 _No, you want to help a woman who doesn't exist_ , she almost told him, but she needed to keep in-character just a little longer. She had one last part for Casey to play.

It was so bright outside that Emma was blinded. Thick snow coated the grounds around the building, reflecting light from the setting sun up into their eyes no matter which way they looked. Emma squinted until she found the edge of the fence surrounding the gunmetal gray building. She motioned with her gun and Casey led the way through the snow.

The building was somewhat isolated, but Emma could see the shadows of a city in the distance. There was a large snowdrift by the road. It must have been above freezing recently because the snow was crunchy beneath their feet, the crust of ice sparkling as it fractured and broke in thin sheets. Emma stopped at the top of the snowdrift, looking down at Casey. It was the perfect setting for the final scene. 

"You didn't try hard enough to save me," she told him. His expression went from wounded to shocked as she transformed into diamond before his eyes. "Remember that." She brought the gun up to her head. 

She had no idea what would happen if she were shot at close range, but she knew what she wanted Casey to see. She channeled all her remaining energy into making the illusion perfectly detailed. What he saw was this: Emma shattering into a million tiny crystals, scattering out until she was indistinguishable from the snow and ice. 

She didn't know how much time it bought her, but even if her faked-death only bought a few weeks head start, it was still worth it. 

She walked back, carefully placing her feet in Casey's footprints. Hopefully he'll do the same and obliterate any evidence of her backtracking. She was still in her diamond form. It was protection against the sharp winter wind, and hopefully better camouflage against the snow. But also it felt good, like stretching her legs after weeks of lying in a small cell. 

When she finally got back to the main path, where the snow was already cleared away or trampled down, Emma started jogging towards the main road. She could sense the minds inside the facility flaring with alarm and knew they'd be looking outside soon. 

She only slowed down when she was out of sight of the facility. The distant buildings of the city were in front of her and the sun was setting behind her. Her bizarre half-translucent shadow pointed towards the city, throwing tiny rainbows across the road like confetti. 

Something about the rainbows in her shadow reminded her of Angel's wings. She'd rescue her. Azazel, too. If she had to, she'd fake their deaths as well. Maybe then they'd all crash with Xavier. Emma had heard that he had become a recluse. A life of avoiding people sounded appealing, quite honestly. 

It began to snow.

Emma laughed, then. The snowflakes didn't melt when they landed on her. When they landed on the back of her hand she could hold it up and look at them through her palm, magnified and strange. She realized she'd lost her composure but she didn't care. No one was around to witness.


End file.
